Volume 2

Rational medicine, a vindication : the address delivered on the opening of the new School of Medicine, Surgeon's Hall, Edinburgh, November 6, 1849 ... by Alexander Wood ... / [Alexander Wood].

  • Alexander Wood
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rational medicine, a vindication : the address delivered on the opening of the new School of Medicine, Surgeon's Hall, Edinburgh, November 6, 1849 ... by Alexander Wood ... / [Alexander Wood]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    leaves it to be acted on by the laws of a grosser, because more material science. We have, indeed, mechanical and chemical operations continually going on; and with the sciences that instruct in these you ought to be familiar. The food is torn and masticated, dissolved and decomposed ; new products are formed, and gases evolved. ‘To assist in this, various movements of the jaws, stomach, and intestinal tube concur; and these chemistry and mechanical philosophy can teach you. But there they stop; and beyond, and above them all, are powers, visible only in their effects, by which all are regulated and controlled and made to work harmoniously together. And when we remind you, that the laws of the living being are inde- pendent of those of physics and chemistry, we mean not to undervalue these and the other col- lateral sciences. ‘They are useful, in the first place, as important means of mental discipline; in the second, as forming a necessary starting point for the examination of the laws of life. In the earlier stages of your education, you must give to them and to anatomy an earnest and undivided atten- tion. But, having mastered them, you have yet to be taught how little they can inform you of the